Pan-African cross-border payment app Chipper Cash is set to acquire Zambian fintech company Zoona Transactions International.
This acquisition will allow Chipper Cash, which has a self-reported user count of 5 million, to add new online services and a new agent network to its offerings. This move is also an expansion strategy by the company into Zambia.
Chipper Cash’s VP of Corporate Development, Laura Kennedy, says Zoona’s acquisition will offer it incredible innovation, a great partner network, complementary products and services, and talented in-country teams.
For Zoona’s co-founder and CEO, Brett Magrath, this acquisition allows the two companies to combine their expertise to connect consumers and businesses across the continent while positioning themselves as the first choice provider of financial services for the people of Africa.

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Africa’s e-commerce giant Jumia is ending its free delivery Prime subscription service and cutting staff costs according to its Q3 earnings announcement.
The company’s results showed consistent growth but lapses in some areas compared with Jumia’s previous quarter.
The company reported $50.5 million in revenue for this year’s third quarter, a 6% growth compared to $47.6 million in Q2, and an 18.4% increase compared to $42.7 million in revenue in the same period last year.
Gross merchandise value declined to $240.7 million from $252.7 previous quarter despite being an increase from $238.1 million realized in the previous quarter.

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Unicorn Flexport is revolutionizing the world of logistics, serving as a freight forwarder with software that enables customers to manage their shipments. But there are still thousands of smaller freight forwarders, many running on outdated ERP software or spreadsheets.
A startup called GoFreight wants to help them compete by providing the Shopify of freight forwarding, with backend software that makes their operations run more smoothly, and a frontend that lets them set up a storefront and provide quotes in a few minutes.
The Los Angeles and Taipei-based startup has raised $23 million in Series A funding, co-led by Flex Capital and Headline.

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Google says it has evidence that a commercial surveillance vendor was exploiting three zero-day security vulnerabilities found in newer Samsung smartphones.
The vulnerabilities, discovered in Samsung’s custom-built software, were used together as part of an exploit chain to target Samsung phones running Android. The chained vulnerabilities allow an attacker to gain kernel read and write privileges as the root user, and ultimately expose a device’s data.
Google Project Zero security researcher Maddie Stone says that the exploit chain targets Samsung phones with an Exynos chip running a specific kernel version. Samsung phones are sold with Exynos chips primarily across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, which is likely where the targets of the surveillance are located.
Stone says Samsung phones running the affected kernel at the time include the S10, A50, and A51.

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Blnk is providing consumers with access to credit at the point of sale. The startup has raised a total of $32 million in a combined pre-seed and seed funding round, which comprises $23.7 million in equity and debt funding as well as $8.3 million in securitized bond issuance.
The $12.5 equity round was led by Abu Dhabi’s Emirates International Investment Company and Egypt-based venture capital firm, Sawari Ventures, with participation from several prominent local and international angel investors.
The debt funding of $11.2 million was secured from several leading local banks and the $8.3 million securitized bond issuance was underwritten by the National Bank of Egypt and Banque du Caire.

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Kenyan-based fulfillment and logistics startup Sendy has announced that it has received undisclosed funding from MOL PLUS, the venture capital arm of Japanese transport company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd.
The funding, which appears to be a bail-out fund, is expected to keep things steady at Sendy as the logistics startup figures out its next act.
The funding negotiations with MOL PLUS appear to have coincided with Sendy’s aggressive cost-cutting over the last three months.
CEO and co-founder Mesh Alloys had earlier attributed the layoffs to the current realities impacting tech companies globally.
MOL PLUS joins existing Sendy investors such as Atlantica Ventures and Toyota Tsusho Corporation to help scale fulfillment services in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Cote d’Ivoire.

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Google has launched a delivery-tracking feature on Gmail, enabling users to receive updates about their orders automatically.
Google says this feature will save users the stress of following individual tracking links for all their orders, as they will be able to see the status of their deliveries with labels like arriving tomorrow, in transit, and delivered today.
Google is launching this product at a strategic time, with Black Friday deals and Christmas orders—both of which account for almost 15% of all retail sales in the US– set to begin in a few weeks.

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Kuda, the Nigerian, London-based neobank, has expanded into the UK to provide its digital banking services, including direct debits and local transfers, to diasporan Nigerians.
The neobank says it has acquired over five million users in its three years of existence.
Kuda’s direct debits and transfers will be powered by a UK third-party company, Modulr, a popular embedded payments platform for digital businesses, to offer a mobile wallet, virtual and physical cards, local UK transfers, and direct debits.
Modulr powers other fintech companies like Revolut, Wagestream, Sage, and BrightPay.

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Paga, a Nigerian fintech that has been in operation for 13 years, has partnered with Visa, a global card issuer, to launch virtual and physical cards.
Paga users can now make payments using their Paga cards online or at any location that accepts Visa cards. The cards will be available in Naira first before US dollar-denominated cards are launched.
Paga chose to launch the Naira virtual cards first because Nigeria is Paga’s largest market, and the company says that there has been a demand for virtual cards from its users.
Tayo Oviosu, founder and CEO of Paga Group, says the Visa-branded cards is a significant milestone because it aligns with our goal of making it simple for people to access and use money.

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YouTube is expanding the reach of its TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts, with today’s announcement that it will begin rolling out Shorts on TV to its global users.
The company’s updated smart TV app will now allow users to view the popular vertical videos in an optimized experience that’s designed to feel more consistent with what users see on mobile, YouTube explains.
YouTube says the new Shorts-watching feature will require a smart TV from 2019 or later, a newer gaming console or a streaming device.
The videos themselves can be found on the new Shorts shelf on the homepage of the YouTube app or on a creator’s channel page.

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